Petrillo: This is our greatest accomplishment

After officially unveiling its brand new training centre at Ridley Reserve, Adelaide United Chief Executive Officer, Michael Petrillo, praised the move as being the club’s greatest accomplishment.

Following the official reveal of Adelaide United’s new training facility at Ridley Reserve, Reds Chief Executive Officer, Michael Petrillo, lauded the development of the facility, claiming it will truly be something the club will benefit from for years to come.

Prior to the centre’s development, the Reds had been travelling across the state on a weekly basis for pre-match training sessions, without ever having the reassurance of a sole base.

And although this project has been a long time coming, to have finally secured a permanent facility is something Petrillo believes will benefit the entire club.

“This training centre has been ten years in the making and it’s been hard to go through those ten years without having a suitable training base,” Petrillo said.

“In terms of what this means to the club and our future, it’s our greatest achievement and it’s just fantastic for us.

“To have a training centre that’s completely ours, it’s going to benefit us all around the club.”

Petrillo also mentioned how the uncertain nature of the location of training sessions in the past caused the type of training to be altered, however ensure to highlight how instrumental the club’s new centre will be in giving back to community surrounding it.

“As the players came in this morning, I had a brief word to most of them and they couldn’t believe what they saw and really weren’t expecting the quality of what we have here,” he explained.

“The last count I had there was about 17 different training facilities that we’ve trained at, which is just crazy for an elite sports team.

“You can’t underestimate the difference a training facility (like this) can make to the team and how it plays, especially in our sport and considering the way we want to play our football.

“Last season we actually had to change the way we trained because of the facilities that we had, or didn’t have. That means we weren’t preparing the way we wanted to prepare, (which can be detrimental to the team).

“(But) I’m really proud of this development and without the help of the council, this wouldn’t have happened.

“I know the club will be eternally grateful to the City of Playford for the way they’ve gotten behind us and supported this opportunity, (but it’s also fantastic because) this area of the state has such a huge base of young football players and fans of Adelaide United and hopefully we can help increase that as time goes by.”